


Unsteady

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2019 [19]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Bruises, Drama, Family, Friendship, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Strong Language, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 20:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: SPOILERS. Sequel to ‘Hell in a Hand-Basket’. Peter’s getting some splash-back from the events of Far From Home. Doctor Strange does feel somewhat obligated to assist him.





	Unsteady

Peter Parker was a multi-faceted boy.  
  
On one hand, he was incredibly intelligent: Once he got rambling about some scientific theory, he revealed an intellect startling for someone so young. He created his own webs, measuring out just the right chemicals to make them strong enough to support an amazing amount of weight, but safely biodegradable so that he didn’t have to clean them up or worry about polluting the environment later. He had, upon gaining his powers at fourteen, chosen to use them to be a hero rather than doing foolish, mischievous things typical of a child his age. And he was, above all else, a very genuine and kind young man. ‘Pure of heart’, as Wong might say.  
  
On the other hand, Parker was still a teenager. He was prone to moodiness, prone to chattering, and to making incredibly _foolish_ decisions. For all the ways he was mature, there were some ways in which he was still (typically, for his age) immature. He could be perky to the point of driving someone mad, and the constant pop-culture references could be grating after a time.  
  
Strange liked him well enough, but he wouldn’t want to be wholly responsible for him.  
  
Only a _little_ responsible, thank you very much.  
  
The main doors of the Sanctum Sanctorum were enchanted so that if anyone knocked on them, it would be audible from anywhere in the building. There was a doorbell too, but nobody seemed terribly interested in _using_ it, so the enchantment stayed in effect. Strange had been pouring over a book in the library when there came a knock on the front door, and he hurried to answer it; it wasn’t often that people came knocking.  
  
When he opened the door, Peter Parker was standing on the doorstep.  
  
“Hi, Doctor Strange.”  
  
If Strange had been blind, only able to hear Parker’s voice, he would have known immediately that something was wrong from the subdued way the teenager spoke. As it was, he could see just fine, and so the source of the boy’s misery became apparent fairly quickly: He had a black eye, and a significantly-sized bruise blossoming on his cheek. It was big, but not serious; Parker’s powers made him stronger than the average boy. “Hello, Peter.”  
  
“I figured I should knock this time, since I broke a lot of stuff the last time I came here.”  
  
Strange nodded. “This is agreeable, and I approve.” He stood aside and let Parker walk in, shutting the door behind him. “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with that shiner you’ve got.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Strange waited for elaboration, and when he didn’t get any, he sighed. “What happened?”  
  
Parker shrugged. He was avoiding eye-contact. “Some guys.”  
  
“Some guys,” Strange echoed, one eyebrow raised.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I know this is New York, but is there any particular _reason_ these ‘guys’ decided to clock you?” Parker mumbled something incoherent. “What?”  
  
“Uh… bat. It was a bat.”  
  
“They hit you with a _bat?_”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Alright, so Parker was a _lot_ sturdier than the average boy.  
  
“Okay, so assault with a deadly weapon- _why_, Peter?”  
  
Peter shrugged again, and so Strange rolled his eyes again.  
  
As a highly-skilled neurosurgeon, Strange had rarely come into contact with teenagers. The ones he did were either very sick and unable to communicate at all, or else they were very intimidated and didn’t want to give him sass- _or_, they were very grateful and responded to him quickly and respectfully. He was entirely unaccustomed to dealing with entirely healthy teenagers that shrugged in response to being asked simple questions about simple things.  
  
“Peter. Come on. Don’t play with me. You’re wearing your backpack, so you’re back at school?”  
  
Parker shook his head. “No. Not yet. This has my suit in it.”  
  
“Alright, so… Did these guys recognize you? Decide to see if they could rough up Spiderman a bit?”  
  
Parker’s head jerked up, and his mouth fell open with some of that familiar, almost adorably naïve shock. “How did you guess?!”  
  
Strange shut his eyes. “Wait, I’m getting a vision: They were drunk too, yeah?”  
  
“Yeah! They-” Parker frowned. “You’re being sarcastic.”  
  
“I’ve lived in New York a long time, kid, and I worked in a hospital. I dated a woman who worked in the ER. I know what happens when people get a little drunk and decide to pick a fight. Besides, the reasons why someone would go for _you_ specifically are pretty limited at the moment.”  
  
“Okay. For a second there I thought you were doing that shaky-head thing where you look at the future again.”  
  
Strange shook his head. “No, this was just common sense.” He turned and motioned for Parker to follow him to the Sanctum’s kitchen. “Sit down.”  
  
“Okay.” Parker slumped into a chair, leaning on the large kitchen table and fairly deflating with misery. Strange pulled an ice-pack out of the freezer- when one suffered from nerve-damage, ice (and heat) packs were precious- and handed it to Parker. “For your eye. Or your cheek, whichever’s bothering you worse.”  
  
“Thanks.” Parker put the icepack on the table, and then set his face down on top of it.  
  
Strange rubbed his face. Peter Parker had many sides, and one of them was a very deep sort of vulnerability that made him look a lot younger than he was. When people talked about others looking like ‘kicked puppies’, it was people like Peter that they had in mind. It was no wonder Tony Stark had been so protective of him.  
  
And Strange, despite his unwillingness to take on too much responsibility for the boy (he had enough already), found himself taken in by the boy too, in no small part because of Tony’s still fairly recent demise.  
  
Strange’s feelings on Tony’s death were… Complicated.  
  
On a universal scale, the death of one person, or even a small handful, of people was minor in the face of the death of trillions of people. In this respect, Strange regretted nothing: If that One Possibility of Success had come down to him sacrificing his own life, he would have done it willingly. Their only chance at victory involved Tony sacrificing himself to stop Thanos. This was the simple, incontrovertible fact: Reality did not care about feelings or compassion. It had to happen, and whatever else he’d felt about Tony Stark, Strange knew that he had made his sacrifice willingly for the people that he’d loved; including Peter Parker.  
  
It was in this respect that Strange’s feelings became complex.  
  
Because even though Tony’s sacrifice was their only chance at defeating Thanos, it did not change the fact that there had been many, many people who had loved and cherished him. There had been many people who loved Tony in spite of his faults, in spite of his difficult behavior, and Peter Parker had most assuredly been one of them. Tony Stark was being mourned by the world that he had saved, and by the people who had known and loved him the best.  
  
Strange did not view Tony’s death as his _fault_, per se. Those who could theoretically claim that it _was_ his fault could in turn be accused of shooting the messenger: Strange had checked every single possible future that could arise, and the only one that led to their victory was Tony’s sacrifice. There was nothing he could have done to change it; if there was a future where everyone survived and was safe, Strange would have directed them down that avenue. But there had been no avenue, and so he had to work with what he had.  
  
_Whatever it takes_.  
  
But before he was Sorcerer Supreme, Stephen Strange was human, and like many humans, he had a sort of irrational sense of guilt over Tony’s death- or at least that he hadn’t warned anyone that it was coming. He stood by his reasoning that explaining it would reduce the odds of it happening, but still that little stab of ‘_maybe you should have told them, **especially** Stark_’ tormented him.  
  
Strange found it annoying.  
  
Christine would have told him it was a sign he had some semblance of a functioning conscience.  
  
Whatever the case, it eased his irrational sense of guilt a little to look after Parker the way Tony must have. And Parker was a hard kid to dislike, so it wasn’t as much of a tax as it could have been.  
  
(When he wasn’t crashing through Strange’s window and breaking shit, anyways.)  
  
“Do you know their names?” Strange asked after a few minutes of silence.  
  
“No.”  
  
“You’re sure?”  
  
“Yeah, they were just some random guys. I don’t know them.” Parker was still face-down on the table, body-language speaking of utter depression. Strange wondered if this was the first time someone had beat on him since Quentin Beck had outed him as Spiderman. The downside of Parker’s sweet nature meant he’d be hesitant to fight back when the fight was personal and non-super-powered, even against actual pond-scum that deserved a beating.  
  
“Does your Aunt know?”  
  
Parker’s head shot up, eyes wide with panic. “No, and _please_ don’t tell her- or Happy. They’ll freak out. They’re already freaking out. _I’m_ freaking out.”  
  
Strange sighed. “It’s fine. I… _guess _you can stay in a spare room here tonight. But if the bruising isn’t gone by tomorrow, you’ll need to tell them where that came from.”  
  
Parker gnawed his lip. “I could say I fell down the stairs?”  
  
“Kid, you ever seen a Lifetime movie?”  
  
“Fine, I’ll say it was a Spiderman thing.”  
  
“At least that wouldn’t be a bold-faced lie.”  
  
“Has your guy found anything?” Parker’s cheeks colored. “The, uh, the video-guy you mentioned. Has he found anything?”  
  
“Haven’t heard from him yet.” Strange shrugged. “Probably takes some time. I wouldn’t worry.” Parker didn’t say anything, but the expression on his face clearly conveyed the ‘easy for you to say’ that he wasn’t saying out loud. “I’ll check on it.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“In the meantime, just… Keep that on your eye, and call your Aunt and tell her where you are. If nothing else, you can go home tomorrow tell her you were helping me with something and that it was a magic-accident.”  
  
Parker frowned. “‘Magic-accident?’ That’s kind of vague.”  
  
“Is she going to ask for details, or is she going to assume that it’s a superhero thing with a complicated explanation behind it.”  
  
Parker thought for a moment, and then blinked. “Wow, you really are good. Are you sure you’re not psychic?”  
  
“Not without the Time Stone, kid, and that’s long gone.”  
  
“Oh. Well, you’re still good at this.”  
  
“This is what happens when you get old, Peter. Do me a favor and live long enough to see for yourself: The next time someone swings a _bat _at you, at least try to trip them or something.”  
  
“Okay.” Parker chewed his lip again. “I just don’t want to accidentally hurt anyone. Especially not right now, with the whole… Beck-thing.”  
  
“Fair enough.” Strange hesitated, but then patted Parker’s shoulder. “You’re a good kid. We’ll figure this out. In the meantime, don’t lie down and take your beatings, okay? You don’t deserve it.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Strange grimaced as Parker set his head down again. He wasn’t used to this side of Parker, the one that was blessedly quiet for all the wrong reasons. It would’ve felt better if he was louder and happier, however badly Strange didn’t want to be subjected to the constant Star Wars references. “You want… Food, or something?”  
  
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”  
  
“Is there _anything_ I can do to make you look less like someone killed your dog?” Strange wasn’t proud of the vaguely desperate note in his voice, but Parker didn’t seem to notice it.  
  
“You don’t have the Time Stone, so you can’t turn back time to before Beck made that video, so no. Thanks, though.”  
  
Damn.  
  
“Alright, well… I’ll go see if I can’t clean up a room for you.”  
  
“Okay. Thank you.”  
  
Once he was out of the kitchen, Strange pulled at his hair a little.  
  
It would have been _so_ much less painful if Parker wasn’t such a nice kid. Was this how it had been for Tony? Had it been a slow slide from ‘aw, a decent kid who’s eager to help’ to ‘pseudo-dad?’ Jesus, if there had been _any_ other path that had kept the man alive, Strange would have taken it.  
  
As it was, this was reality, and it could not be changed.  
  
So Strange would tend to young Spiderman in the meantime, until he was old enough to handle himself.  
  
He would make himself just a _little_ responsible for him.  
  
Just a little.  
  
Really.  
  
(Shit.)  
  
-End


End file.
